in washington. Last night rusty escape, went walk about. And so a citizen panda posse strang into action and abc's david kerley joined the hunt. Reporter: Look fast and meet rusty, the furry fugitive which had the nation's capital all atwitter today. It was just before noon, the country's national zoo tweets out. We are looking for a missing red panda. Wanted, the less than-year-old red panda to arrived from a nebraska zoo and only went on display three weeks ago. Last seen last night. Officials aren't sure if he was kidnapped or escaped. Their inclination is go to go up high into a tree. Reporter:R. Reporter: Zoo officials thought rusty was still in on the zoo grounds. With the search on rusty becomes a social media darling. Hash tag rusty. Hash tag find rusty. Does he look like a panda to? Looks like a red raccoon. Reporter: Smart kid. Red pantas only share a name with the giant pandaes, which are bears. The red panda is related to the raccoons, skunks, and weasels. Less than two hours after the first tweet, look who is spotted in a nearby neighborhood, with the tweet red panda in our neighborhood. Zoo workers rush to the scene and high fives as rusty is returned to captivity. And then in a secret service kind of way, he's whisked away. Thanks for watching. I'll see you tomorrow night. Goodnight.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

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{"id":19478486,"title":"Where's Rusty the Panda?","duration":"1:39","description":"Rusty the rare red panda left the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington late Sunday night.","url":"/WNT/video/rusty-panda-19478486","section":"WNT","mediaType":"default"}